There are numerous medical and surgical procedures in which it is desirable to cut and remove a strip of tissue of controlled width from the body of a human or veterinary patient. For example, it may sometimes be desirable to form an incision of a controlled width (e.g., an incision that is wider than an incision made by a typical scalpel, cutting blade or needle) in the eye, skin, mucous membrane, tumor, organ or other tissue or a human or animal. In addition, it may sometimes be desirable to remove a strip or quantity of tissue from the body of a human or animal for use as a biopsy specimen, for chemical/biological analysis, for retention or archival of DNA identification purposes, etc. In addition, some surgical procedures require removal of a strip of tissue of a known width from an anatomical location within the body of a patient. One surgical procedure wherein a strip of tissue of a known width is removed from an anatomical location within the body of a patient is an ophthalmological procedure used to treat glaucoma. This ophthalmological procedure is sometimes referred to as a goniotomy. In a gonioctomy procedure, a device that is operative to cut or ablate a strip of tissue of approximately 2-10 mm in length or more and about 50-200 μm in width is inserted into the anterior chamber of the eye and used to remove a full thickness strip of tissue from the trabecular meshwork. At present there remains a need in the art for the development of simple, inexpensive and accurate instruments useable to perform the procedure of cutting the trabecular meshwork (TM) in the eye and effectively remove a complete full thickness strip of TM without leaving TM leaflets as well as other procedures where it is desired to remove a strip of tissue from a larger mass of tissue.